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The Lost Art of Handwriting
Faber and Faber, Inc.
December 2012
On Sale: November 27, 2012
288 pages
ISBN: 0865478937
EAN: 9780865478930
Kindle: B008E6I2HU
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
When Philip Hensher realized that he didn’t know what a
close friend’s handwriting looked like (“bold or crabbed,
sloping or upright, italic or rounded, elegant or
slapdash”), he felt that something essential was missing
from their friendship. It dawned on him that having
abandoned pen and paper for keyboards, we have lost one of
the ways by which we come to recognize and know another
person. People have written by hand for thousands of years—
how, Hensher wondered, have they learned this skill, and
what part has it played in their lives? The
Missing Ink tells the story of this endangered art.
Hensher introduces us to the nineteenth-century handwriting
evangelists who traveled across America to convert the
masses to the moral worth of copperplate script; he examines
the role handwriting plays in the novels of Charles Dickens;
he investigates the claims made by the practitioners of
graphology that penmanship can reveal personality. But
this is also a celebration of the physical act of writing:
the treasured fountain pens, chewable ballpoints, and
personal embellishments that we stand to lose. Hensher pays
tribute to the warmth and personality of the handwritten
love note, postcards sent home, and daily diary entries.
With the teaching of handwriting now required in only five
states and many expert typists barely able to hold a pen,
the future of handwriting is in jeopardy. Or is it? Hugely
entertaining, witty, and thought-provoking, The Missing
Ink will inspire readers to pick up a pen and write.
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